Niagara for the Day and a quick trip to Ottawa
In the middle of July, we had been home from Europe for 3 weeks and our friends Sophie and Steve were keen to take us on a wine trip to Niagara Region - about 90 minutes from Home. We parked our vehicle at a Park and Ride lot, and they drove us to our first stop - Westcott Vineyards. https://www.westcottvineyards.com
After that, 2 of us went to Foreign Affair winery, while the other 2 went to Dillons Distillery to buy gin. At Foreign Affair, we were taken aback by the hosting agent who reacted to our plans to visit other wineries as " going to the competition", which neither of us appreciated. Foreign Affair specializes in "apassimemto", which is the practice of laying the freshly picked grapes on trays in a hottish environment to dry them just a bit to concentrate the flavours. The result is wine that seems to be from a warmer climate than Ontario.
We had lunch at RedStone Winery which was a beautiful spot with great food. https://redstonewines.ca/restaurant/menu/ At lunch at Red Stone (affiliated with Tawse), I liked my glass of Chardonnay by Tawse so much that I bought a bottle. Tawse and Flat Rock Cellars are both built to avoid the use of pumps to move wine around, minimizing what is known as bottle shock. It's called a "gravity fed" system with a split level build that allows grapes to be brought in at the higher level and the juice to be piped down to the lower level bottling station. On a previous visit to Flat Rock, we had a tour of this setup which was very interesting.
The last stops were at Kew, Featherstone, Peninsula Ridge, and Ridge Road wineries. At Featherstone, we had a tasting at a table on a wraparound veranda, but otherwise we stayed indoors as it was a very hot day. Here are some pics of the day.
Later in the Summer (right after Labour Day) we took Simon the Wonder Lakeland on a road trip to Ottawa. He’s a good little traveler and knows all the people we were going to visit. The reason for the trip was – to plan another trip! In the New Year, I’ll be writing about our October-November trip to Europe with our Ottawa friends, Don and Cathy. So we spent a day with them to nail down more of the details in person, although Cathy and I had been working on it for well over a year.
On the day of our arrival, we met our friends Aisling and Neil for dinner in Manotick at a restaurant called The Black Dog, which had a patio where Simon could sit. (and mooch for food) The food and drink were great and it’s always nice to catch up.
We stayed at a location central to all our stops -The Homewood Suites Ottawa Airport. https://www.hilton.com/en/locations/canada/ontario/ottawa/homewood-suites/
As usual, it was clean, quiet, and spacious, and the free breakfast had lots of variety. We were there for 3 nights.
On our last day, we drove to the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, and went to our friends’ cottage north of Gracefield. I thought I had taken some pictures, but I didn’t. Suffice it to say, it was gorgeous there, and super quiet since most cottagers had left after Labour Day and we were there on a weekday. After one more night at the Homewood Suites, we three headed for home, with another road trip with Simon having gone really well.
Later this month, I’ll write about my favourite travel moments of 2025, and what I’m looking forward to in 2026.
I’d love to help you with your trip planning!
Happy Travels!
lrobertson@travelonly.com
lrobertson@mywayholiday.com